Bundestag: Scholz leaves the SPD leader standing – and finds it “embarrassing”

Irritating scene with Olaf Scholz in the Bundestag: After the vote on the vote of confidence, the Chancellor talks to SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich and shakes his hand. SPD leader Saskia Esken comes over, Scholz looks at her briefly – only to turn away without comment and leave Esken standing. Esken spreads her hands out questioningly – as if she wants to say: What was that all about?

A short video of the scene, which sparked debate online in the evening, immediately brought the Chancellor into action. “Saskia and I watched the video. Embarrassing of me – luckily we were both able to laugh about it…” Scholz wrote on X about a photo that shows him with Esken.

The SPD also reacted – and tried a joke: Under a photo that shows Scholz with an eye patch after an accident, the party executive wrote on X: “Maybe the other eye got something back then too…”.

The political competition reacted maliciously. Former CDU general secretary Paul Ziemiak wrote on The CDU has its own experiences with videos that put candidates for chancellor in a bad light: After Armin Laschet made an inappropriate laugh in the flood area in the Ahr Valley, the mood of voters shifted in favor of Scholz in 2021.

Scholz, whose traffic light government collapsed weeks ago, had to listen to strong criticism in the debate in the Bundestag. Opposition leader Friedrich Merz (CDU) attacked the Chancellor personally and accused him of leaving the country in one of the biggest economic crises in post-war history and of failing at the EU level. CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt called it grotesque that Scholz is standing for re-election: Anyone who cannot hold a coalition together cannot hold the country together either.